


In the Wind

by anneapocalypse



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hand Jobs, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory, Qrow Branwen's Cavernous Self-Loathing, Trans Male Character, Trans Qrow Branwen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 20:31:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16981308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: Qrow Branwen has never been anyone’s first choice.(Past poly!STRQ, no incest.)





	In the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> There is no incest in this fic, but it has as a premise the Branwen twins dating the same people at the same time, so consider yourself warned if that ain't your thing.
> 
> There are a couple of lines alluding to Qrow being trans in this fic. (Thank you [Akisawana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/akisawana) for the headcanon, for helping me greatly with the details, for beta reading, FOR BASICALLY EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THIS FIC, THANK YOU.) He is many years post-transition and I am working from the assumption that medical technology in Remnant is a lot more advanced than it is in our world, at least for those who can afford it, and also, that working for a literal wizard offers some great benefits. If I have fucked anything up dramatically, please let me know via comment or [private message me on dreamwidth](https://www.dreamwidth.org/inbox/compose?user=anneapocalypse).

Qrow wakes on the couch, dry-mouthed and shivering. He blinks in the dark, eyes adjusting to the glow of the TV in the dim light. 3 something. Can’t remember when he fell asleep. He grunts, shifts, and something clunks to the floor and Qrow reaches on instinct, his fingers meeting leather and steel. Light, almost empty. He uncaps the flask anyway and tips the few remaining drops down his throat. Have to remember where he stowed a bottle last time he was here. Tai doesn’t keep liquor in the house. And Qrow is way too sober for 3 AM. Way too sober for this whole damn week.

Qrow grunts and rights himself, shoving the flask into his pocket. Gods, he wants another drink.

He shuffles to the kitchen.

 

He should be in the wind already. On his way to Haven, rendezvous with Leo. That’d be orders for sure, if Oz weren’t missing.

As it is, he figures Oz would understand.

It’s been a long time since he spent more than a night at the house. Qrow doesn’t let himself call it “home” anymore. Not fair, when he’s always away, and since he left Signal, more than ever. Not fair when it’s Tai who holds the place down, cleaning and cooking and being the good house-husband, on top of teaching full-time. Taiyang knows how to make a house a home. Qrow tries. He checks in. He drops by, for a night, flies in the morning. But it’s not _his_ house. Not anymore.

The kitchen light’s on. Tai must’ve been down here not long ago. Tai stress-cooks, and they’ve been working off a big dish of baked macaroni and cheese since they got back. Nothing delivers out here in the countryside of Patch, and Qrow has no idea what they’d do if Tai didn’t love cooking so much. Starve, or live on instant noodles, probably. But no fear of that. The man is painfully domestic. Figures he ended up being the one who stayed home.

Qrow tried it, tried teaching and settling down and all of that. Not that he didn’t like it, the settling part. Beacon taught him domestic, taught him sleeping in real beds that stayed in one place, and all the way indoors. But maybe never trained all that out of him entirely, because the teaching job made him miserable. And when Ozpin offered him something different—even knowing what it meant, Qrow couldn’t say no.

His stomach grows and Qrow hauls out the dish of mac and cheese and scoops out the remaining corner onto a plate. Nukes it on high, impatient, and even though the cheese kind of breaks and it gets greasy on the bottom, Qrow’s too hungry to care. He eats standing, leaning against the counter. Way back, when the four of them were first assigned to a team and making awkward get-to-know-you talk over lunch in the dining hall, Summer said he and Raven ate like somebody was coming to take it away from them.

She didn’t know then how true that was.

Qrow drops his bowl in the sink when he’s done and moves to the dark window. Tai never bothers closing the curtains--it’s just woods out there, he says, there’s nobody to be looking. You’d think he’d know better than that, considering. Qrow’s spent too much time perched on a bough peering down his beak through an open window to ever assume that nobody, or nothing, is looking.

The moon is up, sharp white on its whole edge, shaded on the shattered side. The woods are dark, a darkness thick between the trees that seems to go back and back forever.

Qrow yanks the curtains shut.

 

The guest room door upstairs is shut, probably by Yang herself, tired of Tai coming in every five minutes. Checking on her, bringing her food, putting cut sunflowers in the vase by the bed, trying to brighten up the little room that isn’t hers. Qrow’s not sure whether she’s in there by her choice or by Tai’s. Maybe she didn’t want to lie in her childhood bed staring at the motionless form of her little sister. Maybe Tai didn’t want her to. Who knows. Qrow basically missed that whole negotiation while he was trying to get Oz on his scroll, trying to find a news channel that wasn’t static, trying not to think _What if she never wakes up,_ trying not to give in and drink himself senseless just to make it all stop for a minute.

Yang’s probably asleep now, but Qrow finds himself pausing by the door anyway, almost nudges it open himself, just to see. It feels like having a newborn in the house again. How you can’t stop looking in, just to make sure they’re still breathing. When Ruby was born, Summer slept in the girls’ room for three months. Just couldn’t bear to leave them alone. Tai used to poke fun at her for it. Qrow gets it, though. That fear of turning around one day to find the most important person in your life flown without a trace.

Rae wasn’t a baby, though. Not the most important person in his life, either, much as it felt that way—like some part of him had been ripped out, some invisible thread that used to connect them across any distance torn away.

Qrow leaves the door closed, paces to the end of the hallway where the door to the girls’ room lies open.

 

Zwei is curled up at the foot of Ruby’s bed in a little furry half-moon, snoring his whistley little dog snores. Last night Zwei spent three hours trying to jump up on the bed and nose her awake, and finally consigned himself to whimpering mournfully at the foot of the bed. This is a pretty drastic improvement.

There are sunflowers by Ruby’s bed, too. Qrow smells them, coming in. It lingers all around the house during the warm season, honey-heavy in midsummer when the trees are flush with green. That scent always makes him think of Tai.

What has faded from the house is the scent of rose petals—an elegant perfume so different from the earthy sweetness of sunflowers. Sometimes, Qrow thinks he catches a hint of rose, in the garden, or in the corners of the conspicuously large master bedroom that now sleeps just Tai most nights. It’s not the same. Not the way he used to smell it in Summer’s hair, when she let him bury his face in it, in her skin when she had him on his knees.

With Tai, it’s just his gardening, the flowers he favors ringing the house like a circle of protection, standing guard by every bed. With Summer it was her semblance, woven into her very aura, and always stronger after a fight. You can smell it from Ruby, too, when she fights, scattering petals blood-bright and just as pungent.

Ruby is so much Summer’s daughter. The shape of her face, the tint to her hair, and those eyes. Her paternal lineage never made a damn bit of difference to any of them, Qrow included—he can’t imagine how he could love her any more than this, that the bottomless affection that blossoms in his chest whenever she smiles could be any deeper. He’ll admit, only to himself, that he looks for it sometimes—not for that Branwen angularity of the jaw or sharpness of gaze, but for the softness of Tai’s smile, the earnest slant of his brow.

Of course he’d rather see Tai in her. Anyone would rather see Tai in her. Nothing that Qrow could pass on to a child would be a gift.

 

Ozpin called Ruby “adorable” the day he met her, and on that point Qrow would have to agree. He wonders what Oz would think of these bookshelves lined with volumes of fairy tales and legends, and as Ruby got older and more precocious in her reading, historical volumes about great huntresses and hunters, and technical studies of weaponry and the art of the hunt. If Oz would use that word for the high shelves lined not with dolls or toys, but with elaborate miniatures of the most terrifying Grimm. Teeth bared, looking out across the room where Ruby slept like a baby.

Probably.

His little huntress.

Qrow swallows past the tightness in his throat, walks to her bedside. It hurts in his chest to look at her, pale and still and her dark hair limp on the crimson pillow.

Gods, he’s supposed to be stronger than this. Ruby dreamed of being a huntress since she was little and Qrow always, always wanted that for her. Before she was ten Ruby was already filling sketchbooks with weapon designs, making up names for them. Sure, most of them made no practical sense, but who cared _._ Something about seeing a kid just _creating_ and looking so happy, and how she couldn’t wait to tell you all about it, and no one coming to take it away from her or tell her it was stupid and to shut up.

And when she said she wanted to try making one, Qrow told Tai, I’ll take her to the forge at Signal. She can learn the craft. It’s just a blade, Tai. I can show her how to do it right. Teach her how to be safe, ‘cause before you know it she and Firecracker over there are gonna be sparring out on the lawn and there won’t be a damn thing you or I can do to stop it.

He was right about that one.

And then it was, _What’s your weapon called, Uncle Qrow? What’s a scythe? How does it work? Can I make one?_

And then, _How long before I can apply to Signal?_

Something Qrow has to give Tai credit for, he never gave voice to that shade of quiet panic behind his eyes when Ruby announced her next grand ambition.

Just said, _Of course you can, xiăo méi. You can do anything you set your heart to._

 

At least she doesn’t _look_ hurt.

At least she doesn’t look like Summer, her cloak stained red, petals scattered on the wind, the scent of copper and Grimm overwhelming the aura of roses, when he carried her home.

Qrow’s hands are shaking. He needs that drink. Gods, he’s been trying not to see that. Forcing it back with pacing and whiskey and what sleep whiskey could bring him. It’s not that again. It’s not _Summer_ again. It’s not.

This time, he got there in time. This time, he was—

lucky.

Qrow grits his teeth and screws his eyes shut. Curls his hand around Ruby’s still fingers.

She’ll make it. She has to.

 

Footsteps from the hallway turn his head.

“Hey,” Tai says from the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe and giving Qrow a searching look. Tai’s hair isn’t as gold or his face as smooth as it once was, but in the odd light of early morning it’s his eyes that get Qrow. How even the laughter lines in his face seem to turn heavy, tired. He’s not even old, Qrow thinks. When did we all get so old?

“Hey,” he says, a little hoarsely.

“I was just in the…” Tai nods his head in the direction of the bathroom, and Qrow wants to say he doesn’t have to explain himself, that she won’t vanish if Tai looks away for one minute, but. He gets it. “Didn’t think you were still up.”

Qrow shrugs. “I wasn’t. I can sit up with her though, if you want to get some sleep.”

“I’m fine,” Tai says, automatically. His eyes have already drifted to Ruby.

“Tai.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

“I said I can.”

“I mean…” Tai scrubs a hand through his hair, looks at Qrow this time. “I mean you don’t have to stay _here_ , if you—if you need to be somewhere else, I understand. I know with Ozpin gone—”

You don’t know, Qrow thinks, that sinking feeling in his chest heavier than before. You have no _idea_ what Oz being gone means, what it means if he’s really—

“I don’t,” Qrow says, too sharply, and tries again, softening his tone a little. “I need to be here.” Need to be here when Ruby wakes up. Somebody has to tell her. And Tai won’t. Won’t or can’t, and it’s the same difference as far as Qrow’s concerned.

Tai holds his gaze for just a little too long, long enough Qrow can feel the back of his neck tense up, before he says, “Okay.”

Qrow _feels_ the retort rise in his throat, feels that _Fine, I’ll get out of your hair, you don’t have to tell me twice,_ as mean as he could make it, and would, if he were really angry. If it were a bad day but less bad than today. Instead he just finds himself closing the distance between them and putting a hand on Tai’s shoulder, and Tai sighs and wraps both arms around him and Qrow feels his breath leave his body all at once, the sudden contact and warmth both familiar and startling.

 _She’s going to be okay_ , he doesn’t say, _it’s going to be all right_ , he doesn’t say, because Qrow might not be a _good_ man, might not be the one either Taiyang or Summer deserved, but he’s a better man than to lie when it matters.

Tai’s hold loosens a little and when their lips find each other it’s not really a surprise, is it. This is, after all, where things usually go when he comes home. Even if this time is anything but usual.

Tai’s mouth gives against his, soft, a couple days of beard rough on his face. When they break, Tai lets out a long, quiet breath and hooks his fingers around Qrow’s hips, pulling him close. The next kiss is longer and lingering and for once, Tai doesn’t tell him he tastes like the inside of a bottle. Just touches their foreheads together, and sighs again.

“You’re not drunk, are you,” he says, and it’s half-statement, half-question.

“Drunk by whose definition?” Qrow says dryly. He’s really not, though. Never did go find that hidden bottle. He really does try to go easy at the house. Tai hates to see him real deep in it. Only time he’ll say no.

“Shut up,” Tai says, grumpy, not without a trace of fondness in it, and kisses him again.

“You shut up,” Qrow grumbles against his mouth.

Tai snorts. “Wow.”

Qrow bites his lip, and nods toward the door. “Come on.”

 

Tai burns. Runs hot, always has. His was _the_ bunk to crawl into when the dorms got drafty on winter nights. They used to play-fight over whose turn it was. Qrow still remembers that, making out sloppily in Tai’s bed, fumbling hands under each other’s pajamas. (Were all teams close like this, Qrow wondered back then, too naive to know. They were backwoods kids raised by bandits, admitted because Oz felt sorry for them, he used to think, though he knows now there was more to it.)

Tai doesn’t fumble now. His hands are firm on Qrow’s hips and then unbuttoning his shirt, eager but steady. Qrow’s less patient, unbuckling Tai’s pauldron, undoing buttons and shoving vest and shirt off his shoulders all at once. Tai slides his gauntlet off himself, sets it on the bedside table, turns back and takes Qrow’s jaw in one hand and kisses him with an enthusiasm bordering on desperation. It’s probably both.

Tai fits his hands into the dip of Qrow’s back, hips pressed tight and flush and Qrow can feel the hard press of his arousal through those dumb cargo pants. Qrow slides a hand down to touch, and mouths over Tai’s throat to feel it on his tongue when Tai moans.

Qrow leans into the heat of his skin. It feels good, and right now there isn’t much else that feels good. Tai’s hands in his hair, the heat of his mouth and his weight as Qrow falls on his back on the bed, dragging Tai down on top of him.

 

He narrowly misses knocking that damn photo off the nightstand. That he misses it isn’t comforting, because that means it’ll just be something else, later, when he isn’t expecting it. It’s always something. Follows him like Summer’s roses, but a lot less sweet.

There are plenty of photos downstairs, mostly of the girls. By themselves, with Summer, with Tai, even a couple with Qrow. This one Tai keeps upstairs, in his room. For the same reason he wouldn’t tell Yang about Raven when she was little. She had three parents who loved her, Tai said. What good is it going to do her to tell her she could’ve had one more?

Ask Tai now, he’ll say he was always planning to tell her someday, when the time was right. Maybe he even believes it. Qrow sort of doubts that. If he hadn’t spilled it, if he hadn’t needed _something_ to tell the confused and grieving four-year-old for why Tai could barely talk to her after Summer died, and came up with nothing but the truth—

Well, he sort of doubts Tai ever would’ve found that right time.

Don’t even know if he did the right thing, telling her. Tai didn’t forgive him for weeks, and Yang’s own curiosity nearly got her and Ruby killed wandering off into the woods. You’d think that would’ve been the final straw, the thing that made Tai hate him and kick him out of the house for good. From three parents down to one.

And instead, after he brought the girls home, and Tai hugged them and calmed them down and put them to bed, and Qrow was thinking about maybe sneaking out before Tai could remember this was all his fault to begin with, Tai caught him before he could leave, threw his arms around Qrow and said how lucky it was that he was there to help, to bring them home safe.

Qrow just stood there, awkwardly patted Tai on the back, but it was that word, _lucky_ , that made him want to fly out of his skin. Which, as it happened, was one thing he could do. Thanks for that, Oz.

He waited for Tai to fall asleep before he flew.

 

But Qrow comes back. Over and over again, he comes back, and every damn time he ends up in Tai’s bed (not _his_ bed, not anymore) and it’s a little like he never left. Just a little. For a while.

And then he flies again.

He couldn’t stay if he wanted to; he has work to do, and it’s important work, what he does for Ozpin, and he knows, deep down, that what he does for Oz is keeping the girls and Tai safe too. Just as much as being there, being close, watching them in person or on the wing. Probably more. Because when he’s out being Ozpin’s eyes, helping him keep Vale and all of Remnant safe from that shadowy enemy Qrow has never seen and still doesn’t quite understand but fully believes is out there—he can protect them without ruining things the way he does. Without hurting them in all the small ways his presence inevitably hurts people.

From a distance, his protection is not also a curse.

From a distance, he can love them safely.

 

Tai’s mouth trails along his jaw and Qrow tips his chin up automatically, letting Tai get to the pulse point under his jaw, kissing and then sucking in that way that always makes Qrow go boneless and shivery. Not quite so much he can’t get Tai’s pants unbuttoned and shoved down his hips. Qrow feels a gasp against his neck as he gets his hand around Tai’s dick.

“Qrow,” Tai says, quietly breathless. Qrow feels teeth on his collarbone. It’s always… a lot, being the center of Tai’s attention. Can’t say he doesn’t like it.

“Tai,” Qrow murmurs, as Tai moves down his body, trailing kisses down his chest and staying carefully in the safe zones where Qrow likes being touched. “You don’t have to—”

Tai pauses, raises eyes to Qrow. “If you don’t want—”

Qrow lets his breath out. Tai would make him say it. His own fault for opening his mouth. “I didn’t say I didn’t want it.”

Tai nuzzles his stomach. His stubble tickles and Qrow shivers. “Then let me, please—”

I don’t want you to take care of me, Qrow thinks, I don’t want you to be _nice_ and _gentle_ , I want you to fuck me hard enough I don’t have to think for the next hour or so. That’s what I _want_. And he knows better than to think either of them are up for that much tonight.

If Qrow’s being honest, he’ll take what he can get. He always has.

 

Admittedly it’s hard to complain about Tai’s mouth on his dick. If Tai runs hot, his mouth is scorching, his tongue aflame. Qrow takes a deep breath and closes his eyes and twists up the pillowcase in his fist and tries to just… enjoy himself. Cost Ozpin enough, in cutting-edge Atlesian medical tech and what he maybe-not-jokingly called “magic,” to hook Qrow up with a fully-functioning dick. Might as well enjoy it. Gods. May Tai never figure out that Qrow’s thinking about the old man while he’s going down on him.

Tai can be a merciless tease when he wants to be, and on a better day, if things weren’t the utter shit they are right now, Qrow would be spitting desperate curses at him until Tai let him come and then spend the next few minutes ribbing him about how much better he is at this than when they were seventeen. They’d trade insults until they drifted off, and Qrow would be in the wind before Tai awoke.

As it is, he keeps up a slow but steady enough rhythm and it builds up slowly, a long few minutes of pleasure that’s almost too indulgent, too sweet—almost agonizing in itself. Qrow finds himself whispering quiet pleas as his breath quickens—”Tai, please—” until he comes up over the edge like an updraft of wind, letting out a sharp cry as Tai swallows him down, and the ripple of his throat sets Qrow shuddering again.

Tai crawls up and curls next to him. Qrow gets twitchy after sex, hypersensitive, and Tai lets him be while he catches his breath, not trying to touch yet. Qrow reads that hopeful look in his eyes, though, when he turns his head, and shoots him a crooked smile. “Was good. Was really good.”

Tai smiles, validated. He’s more of a puppy than a dragon, sometimes. It’s cute. Makes Qrow want to touch him. He rolls on his side, tangles fingers in Tai’s hair and kisses him. “What do you want?”

“You,” Tai mumbles against his lips.

Qrow snorts. “You know what I meant.”

“Just… hands,” Tai murmurs. “Hands is good. I want to stay like his.” Face to face. The old romantic. Qrow can’t suppress a laugh.

“C’mon,” he mutters, pulling Tai closer. “Just c’mere.”

Tai’s quieter, smothering his groans into Qrow’s neck. He only really gets loud when the girls are away at school. Like kids their age don’t know what their parents do. Qrow wants to hear him, wants to hear Tai come apart as he strokes his dick, wants to feel Tai shudder, gasp, murmur his name.

“Qrow,” Tai whispers, and there it is, that thread of neediness in his voice. The one that works its way into the hollow of Qrow’s bones. Makes him feel those things he isn’t supposed to feel, because he _can’t_ stay, not for good, Tai can’t need him like that, and they can’t pretend this is enough when they both know it isn’t.

But when Tai’s shuddering in his arms, gods, in those moments something deep in the hollow of his bones wants it to be enough.

Maybe it can be, just for now.

 

Tai’s a cuddler and Qrow stays close when he’s done. There is definitely something to be said for Tai’s big muscular arms around him, and his face tucked into his shoulder. Kind of scratchy. If they’re going to do this again this visit, Qrow really needs to make sure the bastard shaves. But it’s fine for right now.

“‘S’okay, Tai,” he murmurs, stroking his arm and closing his eyes. “I’m here.” That much he can say. That much isn’t a lie.


End file.
